FROM king of the rom-com to Oscar nominee, Matthew McConaughey has finally managed to transform his personal and professional lives

Matthew McConaughey not only lost 45lb for his role in new film Dallas Buyers Club, which looks set to win him an Oscar, but he also had to lose his reputation. He admits he was known as the wild one, living the Hollywood high life with a succession of famous girlfriends and an enjoyment of partying.

It exploded in spectacular fashion when he was arrested at his home in the early hours after disturbing neighbours by dancing naked and playing the bongos.

After a night in police cells he emerged to say in typical defiant fashion: “I don’t want to rent a place but it was nice for a night.”

Fifteen years later McConaughey, 44, sees this as a turning point. Although there was no immediate change in his behaviour the incident seemed to sum up his life and career. “It was something that never left me,” he says. “It kept on being mentioned. I needed to make changes in my life, the way I was living and the movies I was doing.”

McConaughey’s on-screen hits were an extension of his easy manner and humour. He had established his name – and bank balance – in hit romantic comedies such as The Wedding Planner, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and Failure To Launch.

So he stepped back from the lightweight films he was being offered. He also stopped womanising and began to think more seriously about his future. “I could see my 40th birthday looming,” he says.

“I was an older bachelor than many of my friends. I enjoyed the life I was leading but knew it could not go on like that.”

Three events happened in rapid succession: McConaughey met and married 32-year-old Brazilian model Camila Alves; they had three children Levi, five, Vida, three, and 13-month-old Livingston; and he was offered the unlikely film script of Dallas Buyers Club.

It is the true story of the late Ron Woodroof who contracted Aids in 1985 through a girlfriend. Woodroof, a hard-drinking cowboy from Texas, was a racist, homosexual-hating redneck.

After he was told he had only 30 days to live he discovered a drug manufactured in Mexico which was more effective in the treatment of Aids than anything else on the market in America.

He began to smuggle in the drug, set up an illegal “buyers’ club” and started helping the gay community he had always hated. He prolonged his own life by seven years and that of his customers. At the same time he underwent a dramatic change in his views.

“No one in Hollywood wanted to touch the film,” says McConaughey. “Every time producers and financiers heard the words ‘Aids drama’ and ‘homophobic hero’ they instantly turned off.”

But McConaughey put himself forward for the role and his box office clout won over some of the doubters. He started a crash diet which would eventually reduce his weight by more than three stone so he looked like a man dying of Aids.

He spent six months on his diet but just five weeks before filming was due to start all the financing collapsed. But French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée would not give up and managed to raise half the original budget 10 days before the start date.

“We scrambled it together somehow,” says McConaughey. “I didn’t have time to get to know the other actors. It was a case of turning up, knowing your lines and delivering.”

And he delivered so well it changed his image in an instant. He won a Golden Globe for best actor last month and is favourite among the nominations for best actor at the Oscars on March 2.

“I am from Texas and love Texas,” he says bluntly.

“But I know that there were people around like Ron who had their own set of beliefs and could have a very narrow view of the world.

“Part of the story is how he changes and grows into a more understanding person. He was a two-bit electrician with not much of an education who enjoyed being a cowboy. Suddenly he had to become like a scientist in his knowledge of drugs. He also found a strength he didn’t know he had.”

When I married I intended to stay married. I did not want to make a mistake

Matthew McConaughey

McConaughey, who can count Sandra Bullock and Penelope Cruz among his former girlfriends, is equally forthright about his own changes. “I had some wonderful women in my life,” he says. “But I was in no rush. When I married I intended to stay married. I did not want to make a mistake.”

This must be reassuring after an interview given by his mother Kay, 83, shortly before the bongo incident. “He can get a look in his eyes that is just horrible,” she said. “When he goes in to himself you can’t reach him. I pity the poor woman who ever gets him. Those eyes are piercing.”

McConaughey, who speaks to his mother – nicknamed K-Mac – every week, says she always taught him to treat women with respect. “She also taught me to look at life as if it were a rose in a vase, something beautiful. If I woke in a grumpy mood she’d come up and hit me on the side of the head.

“She would say, ‘You can go back down that hallway and start over’. I would have to go back to my room and begin the day again. My dad also had simple rules. He would say, ‘Don’t lie and don’t say ‘I can’t’. We had tough love in our family.”

He is far softer on his own children. “It helps being an older parent,” he says.

“I had to grow up for them and for me. I enjoyed family life and want the same for them.”

McConaughey was set for a sober future as a lawyer and had been accepted for law school at the University of Texas. But he opted for film school at the last moment.

“I was dreading telling my father and mother. I was raised to get a proper job, work your way up and earn your pay. But they both said, ‘If that’s what you really want you’d better go and do it’. It was that simple.”

Within a year he landed the film Dazed And Confused, co-starring a young and struggling Ben Affleck, which achieved cult status.

From that moment on McConaughey, with his good looks and confident manner, was tipped as “the next big thing”.

Despite some film successes among several flops it seems that it has taken this long for him finally to come of age.